.TH plcget 1 "November 2013" "open-plc-utils-0.0.3" "Qualcomm Atheros Open Powerline Toolkit"

.SH NAME
plcget - Qualcomm Atheros PLC Get Propery

.SH SYNOPSIS
.BR plcget
.RI [ options ]
.RI [ device ]
.RI [ device ]
[...]

.SH DESCRIPTION
Read a specific property value from a Qualcomm Atheros powerline device using the VS_GET_PROPERTY message.
Properties are selected using their numeric property identifier.
Property names are not supported.
Property values are printed on stdout in hexadecimal format by default.
Alternate formats are ASCII, binary and decimal.

.PP
Only selected properties can be read using this message type.
See the Qualcomm Atheros \fIFirmware Technical Reference Manual\fR for supported properties and versions.

.PP
This program is part of the Qualcomm Atheros Powerline Toolkit.
See the \fBplc\fR man page for an overview and installation instructions.

.SH OPTIONS

.TP
.RB - a
Display output in string format where each byte appears as an ASCII character.
Non-ASCII characters are displayed as a period or full-stop.
This option is useful for displaying HFID property values.

.TP
.RB - b
Display output in binary format where each byte appears as 8 bits or binary digits.
This option is useful for interpreting bit-mapped property values.

.TP
.RB - d
Display output in decimal format where each byte appears as three decimal digits.
This option is useful for properties with small integer values.

.TP
.RB - e
Redirects stderr messages to stdout.
By convention status and error messages are printed on stderr while primary program output is printed on stdout.
This option prints all output on stdout in cases where this is desired.

.TP
.RB - h
Display output in hexadecimal format where each byte appears as a hexadecimal octet consisting of two hexadecimal digits.
Hexadecimal is the default output format.

.TP
-\fBn\fI number\fR
The property identifier or property version.
Property identifiers and versions are entered as 32-bit decimal integers.
Property names are not supported.
The default is \fB0\fR.
This option may appear more than once on the command line.
The first occurance specifies the property identifier.
The second occurances specifies the property version.
See the \fIFirmware Technical Reference Manual\fR for an list of valid property identifiers and versions.

.TP
-\fBi \fIinterface\fR
Select the host Ethernet interface.
All requests are sent via this interface and only reponses received via this interface are recognized.
The default interface is \fBeth1\fR because most people use \fBeth0\fR as their principle network connection; however, if environment string "PLC" is defined then it takes precedence over the default interface.
This option then takes precedence over either default.

.TP
.RB - q
Suppresses status messages on stderr.

.TP
.RB - v
Prints additional information on stdout.
In particular, this option dumps outgoing Ethernet packets on stdout.

.TP
.RB - ? ,-- help   
Displays program help information on stderr.
This option takes precedence over all other options on the command line except version information.

.TP
.RB - ! ,-- version
Displays program version information on stderr.
This option takes precedence over all other options on the command line except help information.
Use this option when sending screen dumps to Atheros technical staff.

.SH ARGUMENTS

.TP
.IR device
The MAC address of some powerline device.
More than one address may be specified.
If more than one address is specified then operations are performed on each device in turn.
The default address is \fBlocal\fR.
See \fBDEVICES\fR for information about symbolic device addresses.

.SH DEVICES
Powerline devices use Ethernet Media Access Control (MAC) addresses.
A MAC address is a 48-bit value entered as 12 hexadecimal digits in upper, lower or mixed character case.
Octets may be separated with colons for clarity.
For example, "00b052000001", "00:b0:52:00:00:01" and "00b052:000001" are valid and equivalent.

.PP
The following MAC addresses are special and may be entered by name instead of number.

.TP
.BR all
Same as "broadcast".

.TP
.BR broadcast
A synonym for the Ethernet broadcast address, \fBFF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF\fR.
All devices, whether local, remote or foreign recognize messages sent to this address.
A remote device is any device at the far end of a powerline connection.
A foreign device is any device not manufactured by Atheros.

.TP
.BR local
A synonym for the Qualcomm Atheros vendor specific Local Management Address (LMA), \fB00:B0:52:00:00:01\fR.
All local Atheros devices recognize this address but remote and foreign devices do not.
A remote device is any device at the far end of a powerline connection.
A foreign device is any device not manufactured by Atheros.

.SH REFERENCES
See the Qualcomm Atheros HomePlug AV Firmware Technical Reference Manual for technical information.

.SH DISCLAIMER
Atheros HomePlug AV Vendor Specific Management Message structure and content is proprietary to Qualcomm Atheros, Ocala FL USA.
Consequently, public information may not be available.
Qualcomm Atheros reserves the right to modify message structure and content in future firmware releases without any obligation to notify or compensate users of this program.

.SH EXAMPLES
None.

.SH SEE ALSO
.BR plc ( 1 ),
.BR getpib ( 1 ),
.BR modpib ( 1 ),
.BR plcset ( 1 ),
.BR setpib ( 1 )

.SH CREDITS
 Charles Maier